Naturally the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to allow Hobby Lobby to deny health insurance coverage of four birth control products out of 20 to its employees is controversial.

The 5-4 decision, pitting men justices against women justices, liberals against conservatives, has the lefties outraged loudly and the righties celebrating quietly. Conservatives worry that the decision may be the motivating force needed to get lackadaisical Democrats out to the polls in November.

While the court’s decision applies to “closely held” corporations that aren’t traded on the stock market, those companies employ half the nation’s workforce. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion said that it applies only to birth control and only to companies whose small group of owners share the same religious principles.

This was either a great day for religious liberty or a great leap backward for women’s rights. We’ll be debating that for years.

Here’s what I think: We should not link health insurance to employers. The system developed not because it was a good idea, but because on Dec. 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

During our involvement in World War II, the federal government imposed wage and price controls on industries, most of whom were working around the clock turning out tanks, Jeeps, airplanes, tires, ships and bullets for the war effort.

With 15 million adults in uniform out of a total population of 132,164,569, who would make the equipment to win the war? Millions of women entered the workforce for the first time. To attract workers, companies competed the only way they could, by offering new-fangled “fringe benefits,” including pensions, paid vacations and health insurance. The IRS made employer-provided health insurance tax free.

When the war ended, President Harry Truman tried to create a national health insurance program, but he was rebuffed by Republicans crying “socialism.” So, we’ve kept the wartime system, with additions added in 2009 by the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare. I doubt this will improve health care and control costs.

Isn’t it time to re-think the entire system rather than adding a wing and a prayer to the “war effort” insurance plan?

We could adopt a Canadian style system of universal Medicare, where Uncle Sam pays doctor and hospital bills but doesn’t actually employ anyone. We probably won’t do that, though.

Or we could create a new system based on the competitive model. The way things have been, people have no idea how much a medical procedure or treatment costs because employers pay for most of it. Health care systems engage in an arms race featuring whiz-bang machines and ski lodge-like medical specialty centers with wide-screen TVs and fireplaces to get our business.

A few years ago, a consultant for one of Rockford’s three health systems came to see me. He asked what I thought of his system’s TV commercials. Did I find them influential? I said no, an image ad for a hospital is the same as an image ad for Boeing, Chase Bank or BP. Inspiring yet subtle music. Smiling, concerned people in lab coats nodding to one another and moving in slow motion. Blah blah blah voice overs done by soft-spoken but self-assured females.

Well, he said, what ad would influence me? Simple, I replied. “Now for a limited time, all knee replacements are 40 percent off, and we throw in a 10-speed bike! Get a knee, get a bike! Only at SwedishAmerican.”

That, I said, would capture my attention. It was NOT what he wanted to hear. But we shop around for car insurance, right? That causes car insurers to offer discounts and lower rates than the other guys.

So, uncouple health insurance from employment and let insurers compete across state lines for our business. Make all companies contribute a portion of their earnings to a government-assisted catastrophic care fund for the really big medical bills that would bankrupt most of us. And make sure the poor have proper coverage through community health centers like Crusader.